


Genius Next Door

by Kolamity



Category: The Pretender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:42:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5471705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kolamity/pseuds/Kolamity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifteen years of freedom and Gemini still isn't sure where Jarod ends and he begins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Genius Next Door

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Marie_L](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marie_L/gifts).



 

 _If you just hold in your breath till you come back up in full_  
_Hold in your breath till you've thought it through, you foolish child_  
_Regina Spektor - Genius Next Door_

 

* * *

  


Four days since Gemini had last seen the sun and still his fingers craved the surgeon’s blade.

It hadn’t taken a genius to fudge the time on his on call records; all the residents at Mayo knew how to roll back their hours, game the system to maximize their time in the operating rooms cutting. The attendings turned a blind eye until it affected a residents ability to work-- and Gem was one of the few who could handle working 36 hours straight and still face down a domino surgery with his full wits.

It was one of the few blessings the Centre had wired into his brain, a behavior ingrained for the most grueling of simulations. A quick catnap and a locker full of high protein nutrition bars Gem made himself the few hours he wasn’t in the hospital and he was good to go for another ten hours.

His fellow residents called him a machine, and the first months of residency he had taken their private jokes at his defense with as much grace as a man who had lost a sizable chunk of his adolescence and was use to missing popular culture references could. A fellow resident, Eli, had taken pity on his oblivious to their teasing and loaned him the first two Terminator movies.

It was difficult to watch that first movie-- Gem appreciated the references to the machine being an unstoppable force, as that was what he had built himself to be since his release from the Centre. But the brutal death of the character named Kyle reminded him of another brother he would never know, perhaps the one member of his family who could look upon him not as a monster, but another human being who just happened to have been brewed in a lab.

Still, the residents were not wrong to liken Gem to the machine monster-- he might not be an unrelenting force of retribution and fiery justice that his progenitor Jarod had been, but he liked to see himself as a force of unyielding good.

Gem preferred to use the full brunt of his genetic gift at one problem-- and his genius was best used at surgery. Saving one heart, slice by slice, with research he hoped would save countless more. It was a slower path, and perhaps not as satisfying as Jarod’s crusade of personal vengeance, but it suited him. Gem liked working within the system-- he hadn’t grown to adulthood in the industrial think tank, after all, so being chained to one cause didn’t remind him of a life that had been lost. It reminded him instead of the good that could come about from putting the full force of your mind on one lone problem.

It had been a long time since Gem had thought of the good natured Eli; that resident had flamed out a few months later, unable to separate his compassion for their patients from the need to distance oneself from monsters that were living inside. Sometimes the tumors and heart defects won, no matter the skill of the surgeon doing the cut. Genius could only get you so far, even to those trained at a program as illustrious as Mayo.

“Has the machine finally shut off?” Travis, one of the few remaining residents from their year, waved his hand in from of Gem’s face. “How many hours have you been on call, man? Did Gunderson finally break you with that domino?”

“Four days and I could still effectively operate for another sixteen hours, assuming I locked myself in the lounge for a half hour.”

Gem smirked, holding his hand out for the other resident to see how steady his control remained.

Travis let out a low whistle before slapping him on the back. “You aren’t going to do it though, right? We call you the machine and all, but a guy’s gotta rest sometime. Plus, the rest of us who don’t have your superior brains need to actually cut too if we are going to survive.”

“You aren’t a lame-brain, Travis,” Gem allowed, tossing a nutritional bar that Travis caught right before it smacked into his startled face. “You hardly ever kill anyone.”

“Your faith in my skills is touching.” The other resident quipped before taking a bite of the bar and making a disgusted face. “I know these are the secrets to your superpowers, Gem, but you’d think after three years you’d learn how to make these taste like something more than feet.”

“Says the man whose body fueled entirely by Red Bull and high fructose syrup,” Gem joked back before turning back to his locker. The jovial air fell as he stared at the phone, still displaying the notification of five missed calls.

“So you splitting for a reason?” Travis asked. “You look like you just got assigned scut duty for the next month, so is our shy-guy Gem finally going on a date? ”

“I wish it was that simple.” Gem sighed. “No, I’m going on leave for the next couple days for personal reasons.”

“Death in the family?”

Gem sighed again. “Something like that.”

“I’m sorry man. When you get wherever you’re going, just text me if you need more time and I can see who can switch shifts to cover for you.”

“Thank you,” Gem grabbed his phone and his backpack, unsure of how to proceed. Reading social cues was something he knew he was more equipped to do than his progenitor Jarod was, largely thanks to getting out of the Centre before his teens, but it was rare for Gem to encounter situations of sympathy for himself. Was physical contact required, or would his simple thank you suffice?

He hated these awkward moments, those reminders that he was still an outsider to a world that had little knowledge of the horrors of the Centre. Fleeting these moments of awkwardness were, but they still nagged at his head, even days later. Turning the scenario over countless times, trying to know the right angle to take for the next time he faced it to avoid that feeling again.

Equal parts anxiety and genius, his gifts from progenitor and Centre both.

* * *

 

Gem hadn’t looked at his phone until the plane had landed in Philadelphia hours later. He knew what the voice mails would say, and he’d used the down time to catch up on sleep he grudgingly admitted was sorely needed. There weren’t any connections to the airport at Blue Cove, hiring a private charter was out of the question. Confidence schemes against the corrupt and wicked might cover Jarod’s expenses, but Gem favored simple means and tried not to use his abilities at the expense of others.

A 70 mile journey in a rental was the perfect time to listen to his progenitor seek to entice his clone to come to a ceremony they both knew Gem would not miss.

It was only the fourth message that Jarod let out the big gun.

“Father will be there,” Jarod’s voice was strained-- the weight of his demons not eased by the destruction of the organization that had sired most of them.

Gem did not miss that Jarod did not refer to the Major as their father; Major Charles had taken him in once he’d gained freedom from the Centre, but he had never been the man’s son. The two had lived together onto the run for several years, more than enough time for Gem to know the Major to be a good, just man.

But the Major saw Jarod first when he looked at Gem, even for all their long years on the road together. It wasn’t intentional-- Gem was smart enough to know that-- but what the Major saw was just a spectre of a boy he had lost, not the reality of the boy he had saved. This disappointment in the Major’s eyes when he looked at Gem might be fleeting, just a fraction of a second, but it was enough to remind the boy he was just a clone of the son that had been taken.

It had been years since Gem had spoken with the Major. Perhaps now that he and Jarod had been reunited, the man might see Gem for who he truly was.

It was just the stray hope that Jarod knew would reel Gem in. Far more than witnessing the final destruction of the Centre itself.

**Blue Cover eta 20 min**

Gem’s finger paused above the send button on his phone. Should he add more to the message? It wasn’t as if he and his progenitor were close. He spoke with Sydney far more than he did Jarod; it seemed a better use of his time, after all, as the psychiatrist was always eager to talk Jarod and Jarod… well, reticience was one way to put his progenitor’s reluctance to talk about himself.

Gem had always found the pretender to be as emotive as a soggy clam; he might be warm and open to those he was trying to help, but his clone was almost never one of that number. It seemed to Gem as if Jarod saw him as spectre of the man’s lost childhood, just as the Major did. No point opening up to a thing that was just a poor imitation of oneself.

 _Stop being a child_. Gem scolded himself and firmly pressed the send button.

Instantly, a message bubble popped onto the screen, indicating that Jarod was writing a response. He did not need to wait long.

**Why didn’t you return my messages earlier? I had a charter on standby for you.**

Quickly scanning the road, Gem pushed down his resentment at the older man’s authoritative manner before responding. What existed of a relationship between the two was equal brother and father; sometimes it was difficult not to respond to Jarod from the part of Gem that was still a turbulent teenager.

**I have the means to travel and no need for a private charter. Thought I’d explore around Blue Cove.**

It wasn’t as if he had seen much of the town-- he hadn’t seen the Centre main campus, hadn’t been haunted by those buildings on a green cliff the way Jarod had. The Gemini Project had been conducted largely at another campus. It was only when Sydney had taken over as lead that Gem had been to the main Centre campus, brought into the light as it were and no longer shoved in a back corner for Raines to poke at.

**You can save your money, let us help you sometimes.**

He wasn’t the boy that Jarod had known-- hadn’t been that boy for half his lifetime. Maybe seeing the man that Gem had become would cease the man from viewing him as a boy who was incapable of taking care of himself.

There was so much he’d like to type into that message window. But instead he simply tapped out four words and pressed send before tossing the phone into the passenger seat.

**I’ll be there soon**

*** * ***

Gem pulled the rental beside a small gathering of cars but left the engine running. One hill away from the main Centre campus, and a small, frightful part of him was screaming to run, skin crawling with the threat to his freedom. He could only imagine what Jarod and the half a dozen others standing around must feel-- they had far more nightmares of the place than he did.

Should he have come? He asked himself for the hundredth time since getting in the rental.

He breathed sharply through his nose, seeking to steady his racing heartbeat. Anxiety pressed on his awareness, Gem’s thoughts spiraling down deeper and darker paths of causation and doom.

A knock on the rental’s window broke him free, let his lungs fill deep with neglected air. He shut the motor off and got out of the car.

“Hello Sydney.” He greeted the ancient psychiatrist; the man looked at him with an intensity that was almost painful before his face settled in a gentle benignness he remembered from the brief time the man had been his handler.

“Good to see you, Gemini.” The psychologist stressed his name, as if reminding him that the body before him was not, in fact, the Jarod it appeared to be.

Gem did not even allow the flair of jealousy to linger, turning back to retrieve his surprise from the passenger seat.

“So I’m the last one to get here?” He asked the psychiatrist as he accompanied Gem towards the group.

Sydney nodded, leaving Gem to stand before the man he had been cloned from.

Unable to meet Jarod’s eye, Gem instead held out a carton of double chocolate. “Thought you’d need some for this.”

At the small mom and pop shop he’d picked it up at down the road, the man at the register had done a double take. Gem had braced himself for the childlike wonder those his progenitor had helped always had, seeing the face of Jarod magically de-aged, but the man had said nothing, simply rung him up and wished him on his way. Gem encountered those former victims rarely, hated the raw disappointment when he told them they weren’t speaking with the original.

He peeked at Jarods face long enough to see there was no disappointment on Jarod’s face, but a small measure of that same wonder the people helped held. “I don’t have a spoon.”

Gem pulled two and raised them in a V, still encased in cheap plastic. “Guess there’s a reason to keep me around after all,” He quipped.

Jarod froze, his hands hanging in midair for a long moment before his fingers carefully closed around his gifts. “You have more value than you know.” He allowed before his eyes shifted down. He opened the tub of ice cream with an intense attention, as if the task was so strenuous he was incapable of looking at his clone.

But Gem felt no slight in the refusal; Jarod was not a man who was easy with his emotions. His response to awkward moments like this was to look away; those the two shared the same genetics, that was not Gem’s way.

“So when are the fireworks set to start?” Gem gestured towards the hollow building before the small group. Stark against the green field, it was almost unimaginable that so much horror had been born behind those pristine walls. True, some good had come-- his own gestation, an obvious example-- but those few good intentions would never make up for the great evils done in sciences name.

“Now that you are here, we maybe push the detonator at any time.” Sydney spoke from beside a man with a startling resemblance to himself. Had the Centre cloned Sydney as well? But no, the man had a subtle differences -- a shorter jaw, a stronger nose, a softer eye. A son then, no doubt hidden from the Centre lest they gain leverage on him. Drawn out into the light by sure knowledge that the Centre was finally dead and would harm them no more.

At least, beyond their memories and the trauma they would all carry with them to the grave.

“Well, let’s start the show then.” Gem peeled open his own ice cream container scooped out a big bite. “None of us are getting any younger.”

Miss Parker reached out from her place beside Jarod to smack his arm. Gem quite liked the woman-- she was possibly the only one in the entire Centre who had looked at him as his own person. It was obvious she cared a great deal for his progenitor, though even now neither admitted it.

“Sorry for not bringing treats for everyone.”

“Aren’t you a heart surgeon?” Miss Parker demanded, her eyes glittering with equal parts sass and scorn. “Ice cream is the last thing a healthy person needs.”

“A life without bliss is a life not worth living.” Gem quipped, grinning widely; he could feel the chocolate chips and melting cream cling to his teeth. “And all our hearts could do well with more joy. Doctors orders.”

The woman flicked her eyes towards Jarod before crossing her arms before her chest and staring resolutely at the bones of the Centre. His progenitor was too busy studying the melting ice cream to notice.

“So who has the honors of blowing up the Centre for once and for all?” A tall, lanky fellow who screamed the platonic ideal of tech geek asked. His arm was wrapped around a young woman who appeared to be Gem's own age.

The small group began to murmur and shift; it was a valid question. They all had their own reasons for needing to be the one to press that detonator. How could they decide who had the most taken from them by the Centre? Those who were twisted by it? Those who were molded by it? The one who was created by it?

In the end, it was an irate Miss Parker who grabbed the detonator and smashed the pin down without ceremony. As the charges in the building began to blow, Gem thought it was oddly fitting that the place that had been built by her family would be destroyed by one of their own.

The small group watched as the building crumbled into itself, ash and fire blasting from the site in a haunting plume.

Gem knew that burning complex would not be the end of the Centre; the organization might be gone, but the scars of the victims would live on. But perhaps now that the physical manifestation of the horror was gone, they might all begin to grow beyond those nightmares, see him as something more than a pale shadow of Jarod.

 _Maybe then Jarod and I can stop running away from each other_ , Gem thought, sneaking peeks at the man so like himself and yet a complete stranger, the Centre’s destruction vivid in the distance. _Actually be a family instead of an experiment gone off the rails._

* * *

**Can you cover me for a few days Travis?**

**My brother and I have a lot to catch up on.**


End file.
